Benching Chief Wahoo is the right thing for the Cleveland Indians to do: editorial

In deciding to retire Chief Wahoo, the Indians acted wisely. Wahoo should have made his exit years ago, and the offensive symbol should not have returned to Indians uniforms after the team moved in 1994 to what's now Progressive Field, leaving the giant Wahoo statue behind.

But fans loved the Chief, and that made it tough for Indians management.

Which is why, even with prodding from Commissioner of Baseball Rob Manfred, today's announcement was a brave move by the Indians organization and by owner Paul Dolan.

The Indians name will stay but Chief Wahoo will vacate uniforms after the 2018 season. The team will keep merchandising rights to avoid pirated versions, but marketing will be de-emphasized, as it should be.

Next year, instead of Wahoo, the Indians will wear a sleeve patch for the 2019 All-Star Game, to be played in Cleveland. For 2020 and beyond, Dolan predicted to cleveland.com's Paul Hoynes a "fair amount of time to explore what, if any mark, we want to put on the sleeve."

Why was this the right thing? Let us count the ways.

* Generations of Indians fans may have grown up viewing this long-nosed, red-faced, broadly grinning symbol as harmless and lovable. But the Chief, viewed dispassionately, and particularly through the lens of Native American sensibilities, was a racist stereotype. It had to go, as we editorialized four years ago.

* It diminished the team to continue using the offensive logo -- and the Indians organization knew it. Lawsuits, threats of lawsuits, protests and the team's own recognition of these problems in its "demotion" of Wahoo in recent years all underscore this. So did the team's decision not to have a Wahoo in sight at spring training in Arizona, where Native American sentiments against it were strong.

* Wahoo isn't just a baseball image. It's part of what helps define Cleveland, along with the team itself. But this patently racist, stereotyped symbol undercut the welcoming, forward-looking image Cleveland sought to project. We are better than that. We need our symbols to support it.

As we said in our 2014 editorial calling for the Chief to go, this decision will no doubt disappoint many Tribe fans, whose emotional bonds to Chief Wahoo, often going back to childhood, are deep and abiding. But "a demeaning symbol is a demeaning symbol," as we wrote then.

It does nothing to taint one's love of team and long affection for an image beloved in childhood to let it go. Rather, it is a uniquely human attribute to be able to reflect, to change attitudes, to see issues from a new perspective.

Nor is it simply political correctness to recognize that Wahoo is an offensive image to those whom it caricatures and a corrosively stereotyped exaggeration to all who embrace it.

Fans, with the team, must absorb this reality, bid farewell to the Chief, and move on.

About our editorials: Editorials express the view of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization.

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